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In Rome, Fashion Royalty Hails Its King

Valentino basked in applause on Saturday in Rome after a showing of his designs, one of many events noting his decades of influence on fashion.Credit
Alessandro Di Meo/European Pressphoto Agency

ROME, July 7 — The glowing columns in the Temple of Venus were fiberglass replicas, and, yes, that was Princess Caroline of Hanover having her supper next to the Shah of Iran’s widow and across from Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister. The Colosseum seemed as close as a postcard in one’s hand.

The designer Valentino has been busy this weekend reaping the rewards of 45 years of being Rome’s most glamorous name. He received permission to use the city’s oldest ruins for an open-air dinner Friday for 500, followed by fireworks.

A retrospective of his work opened. On Saturday, some 1,000 people saw his latest couture collection and then dressed — most in Valentino — for a black-tie dinner.

The guest list felt like a condensed version of 30 years of W magazine, the chronicle of the international jet set Valentino has dressed for the Oscars, for lunches in Capri and for their first, second and sometimes third weddings.

Along with the actresses Uma Thurman and Sarah Jessica Parker, there were Rothschilds, Borgheses, Radziwills, Santo Domingos and Guinnesses. Diane Von Furstenberg came with her husband, the entertainment mogul Barry Diller, staying aboard their yacht.

“Incredible,” Ms. Von Furstenberg said after the fireworks display. “To have the Colosseum as the backdrop — you can’t do better than that.”

Not that Valentino, 75, and his business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, didn’t try. The cost for the three-day celebration is expected to exceed $10 million, according to an individual familiar with the planning.

For the retrospective, at the Museum of Ara Pacis, they enlisted the opera designers Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda, who arranged mannequins in tiers or in choirlike groups.

During a cocktail party for the opening, a guest, pointing to a silver dress edged in feathers, asked Valentino if it wasn’t a famous number once worn by Jennifer Lopez.

“No, that was Jackie Kennedy’s dress,” he said with a shrug. “We made Jennifer a copy.”

For the fashion show, Dante Ferretti, an Oscar-winning set designer, hung black-and-white photographs of Valentino’s designs three deep, evoking a gallery.

Mr. Ferretti, who has worked with directors like Federico Fellini and Martin Scorsese, said he did not normally take on this kind of work, but he was intrigued by the idea of recreating a Hadrian work, the Temple of Venus, whose only public use is by the pope.

“I thought, O.K., Valentino is a kind of pope,” Mr. Ferretti said. He added, “That’s a joke, of course.”

Francesco Rutelli, the Italian minister of culture, who was sitting Friday evening with the group that included Mr. Berlusconi and Princess Caroline, said letting Valentino use the temple was “a once in a lifetime” decision that was consistent with the designer’s place in the city, if not Italy’s identity.

Though he may be a lifetime citizen of the beau monde, Valentino’s continued leadership at the head of his own brand has been questioned in recent years.

Long before fashion editors from around the world descended on Rome, there was speculation — indeed, the assumption — that he planned to retire and that the company’s new owners, a private equity fund called Permira, had already started looking for a successor.

Mr. Giammetti said that was not true. “Nobody is going to succeed Valentino,” he said. He added that the market for high-end fashion, including haute couture — that specialized made-to-measure branch where a Valentino suit with all the trimmings can cost $50,000 — is going to expand with the spread of wealth to areas in Asia and the Middle East.

This past spring, Permira, based in England, acquired 53.6 percent of the Valentino Fashion Group, which includes Hugo Boss, from Marzotto, an Italian textile and fashion maker, which has owned the brand since 2002.

Despite having sold their financial interests in the company five years ago, Valentino and Mr. Giammetti have managed to keep creative control.

But it is unclear how their interests will be balanced by the new owner’s expectations for a brand widely viewed as underdeveloped. Valentino’s revenues last year were about $360 million.

“This is the key question and it’s difficult for me to answer,” said Stefano Sassi, the chief executive of Valentino. “We’re talking about two men who are so tough, so clever and with so much talent and communication power. And we’re talking about a company that has to be developed. It’s a matter of finding a balance between the two things.”

For the weekend, at least, such concerns seemed far away. The parties were sophisticated, yet casual. At the temple, there were no bodyguards visibly lurking near the V.I.P.’s. Photographers were at a minimum.

At the fashion show on Saturday, the lineup of so many of Valentino’s designer peers in one place spoke to the impact of his career. Sitting together were Ms. Von Furstenberg, Zac Posen, Manolo Blahnik, Tom Ford, Donatella Versace, Giorgio Armani and Carolina Herrera. Karl Lagerfeld, who has known Valentino for 52 years, since they were young assistants in Paris, was seated next to Princess Caroline.

With the rest of the audience, they stood and applauded as Valentino, in a white suit, led models swathed in a gorgeous haze of pink satin and silver sequins down the runway for the finale. He stopped before the group and bowed slightly, then continued on.

When he returned, he touched his nose to indicate he was crying, or about to cry, and then he stopped to embrace Mr. Giammetti.

Mr. Ford shook his head and, pausing for a moment, said, “I’ve never seen him cry before.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Where Emperors Strode, Fashion Royalty (and the Real Kind) Hails Designer. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe